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(A/N: Don't forget to give those power stones to Skyrim everyone!)
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Cao Pi pressed on, his mind, trained in tactics and geography, grasping for a lifeline. "And as for the western garrisons… we have been thinking of Tianshui as the only door. But it is not. They number over two hundred and twenty five thousand men. They are not a single column, they are an army. If the southern door at Tianshui is closed…"
He leaned forward, tracing an invisible path on the dusty table. "They can go north. Through Canluan and Linjing. The terrain is mixed, plains for speed, rocky highlands for defense. And the Wei River runs through them. They could even come by boat, ferrying supplies and men downstream. It would take more time, yes. Weeks, perhaps. But they can come."
The words hung in the dusty, trembling air. For a long moment, Cao Cao simply stared at his son, as if seeing him for the first time. The dullness in his eyes evaporated, replaced by a spark, then a flare, then a roaring fire of rekindled possibility. He shot up from his chair so suddenly it scraped back with a shriek.
"AHA!" The laugh that erupted from him was not the dry chuckle of a strategist, but a full throated roar of a man pulled back from the precipice. It was raw, relieved, almost manic. "Genius! My son, you are a genius! How could we have been so blind?! We, the old foxes, with our maps and our schemes, staring at the locked gate and forgetting there is a whole world around the wall!"
He clapped Cao Pi on the shoulder with a force that nearly staggered the young prince. "Canluan! Linjing! Of course! Backwater lands to tax collectors, but highways for salvation! The river road! They can float down the Wei like a floating city of spears!"
The transformation was electrifying. The specter of the headache, the weight of despair, seemed to slough off him. He was Cao Cao again, the man of action, the master of the audacious pivot.
He turned to the guard at the door, his voice ringing with restored authority. "You! Fetch my advisors! All of them! Xun Yu, Guo Jia, Xi Zhicai, Jia Kui, Cheng Yu, Tian Feng, Xu You, bring them here immediately! The night is not over, and we have a new path to chart!"
The guard, startled by the sudden energy, bowed and scurried off into the rumbling darkness.
One by one, the seven pillars of Wei's intellect arrived, their robes askew, faces pale with lack of sleep and etched with the strain of the endless bombardment. They filed into the shuddering chamber, exchanging worried glances. To see their emperor laughing was more disconcerting than seeing him in rage.
Xun Yu, ever the dignified first minister, bowed. "Your Majesty. You summoned us. Has the situation… changed?"
"Changed?!" Cao Cao boomed, pacing now, a caged tiger given a glimpse of open plain. "It has been illuminated! By this young man here!" He gestured grandly to Cao Pi. "While we old men wept over a closed door, my son remembered there is a window! A large, river fed window!"
Guo Jia, hearing that, have his keen eyes turned sharp. "Your Majesty, please elaborate. We are… in the dark."
Cao Cao stopped and launched into an animated explanation, his hands carving the air, describing the northern route through Canluan and Linjing, the river transport, the extended but viable timeline.
As he spoke, you could see the same revelation dawn on each advisor's facez a slow dawning of embarrassed relief. Of course. How did we miss it? The intense focus on the immediate crisis at Tianshui had created a strategic blind spot.
Xun Yu was the first to recover, turning to Cao Pi with a deep, respectful bow that was more meaningful than any flattery. "Your Highness… your quick thinking is a gift from heaven. You have given us not just an option, but a lifeline."
Guo Jia nodded, his mind already racing down the new path. "It confirms the course, then. We cut our losses here. A fighting retreat to Chang'An is no longer a desperate flight, it is a strategic repositioning to a fortified position where we can await the full muster of our strength."
"But," Guo Jia added, the pragmatist surfacing, "cutting losses is not without cost. Lie Fan is no fool. The moment he senses a general withdrawal, he will become a wolf on the hunt. He will pursue, harry, and try to turn our retreat into a rout. The casualties… could be devastating."
Cao Cao's exuberance tempered, but the decisive light remained in his eyes. "I know. Which is why we do not simply turn and run. We leave a rearguard. Not a token force, but a dedicated, sacrificial army. Several thousand. Ten thousand if necessary. Their orders will be simple, hold the breaches, hold the courtyard, hold every inch of this cursed stone for as long as breath remains in their bodies. They will sell each hour with their blood, to buy miles for the main army."
The room fell silent. The cold, brutal arithmetic of the proposal settled over them. It was one thing to lose men in the ebb and flow of battle. It was another to order thousands to certain death, to stand and die so others could live.
It was Tian Feng who voiced the painful, human cost. "Your Majesty… to do such a thing… the men chosen… and the men who leave them behind… the blow to morale, to the very soul of the army, would be catastrophic. It is one thing to die fighting alongside your brothers. It is another to watch your brothers turn their backs, knowing you are being left to die. It could break the army's spirit more surely than any defeat."
Cao Cao's face hardened. The fatherly pride was gone, replaced by the iron of the supreme commander. "It is a risk," he acknowledged, his voice dropping to a grave, resonant tone. "But it is a risk we must take to ensure there is a Wei army left to have morale. A broken spirit in Chang'An can be mended with walls and a cause. A dead army in Tong Pass mends nothing. This is the calculus of survival, Tian Feng. Not of comfort, not of honor in the old way, but of the raw, ugly preservation of the state. Those who stay will be honored as the saviors of Wei. Their families will be lifted from obscurity, granted lands, titles. Their names will be sung. But they must stay."
He looked at each of his advisors, his gaze demanding not just agreement, but complicity in this terrible, necessary sin. "We are not just planning a retreat. We are performing a surgery. We are cutting away a limb to save the body. The limb will feel the pain. The body must learn to live with the phantom ache, and use the other limbs to fight on."
The decision, awful and final, hung in the air. There were no more objections. In the face of the alternative, total annihilation, the grim logic was unassailable.
They would craft the orders, select the units for the rearguard, plan the staggered withdrawal routes. They would begin the grim business of choosing who would live to fight another day, and who would become a hero in a tomb of stone, all to buy time for a hope that now traveled by a longer, northern road.
The renewed bombardment outside, shaking the very stones of their chamber, was no longer just an assault. It was the clock by which they would now measure the loyalty of the doomed, and the desperation of the saved.
The decision, once uttered, became an irrevocable law. The gravity in the room shifted from debate to execution. The advisors bowed, their faces masks of solemn duty, and dispersed into the predawn gloom of the shuddering fortress, each carrying a fragment of the terrible burden.
Guo Jia and Xi Zhicai, the masters of warfare and personnel, took upon themselves the grim duty of selecting the sacrificial ten thousand. They pored over rosters not to find the strongest, but to find the most steadfast.
They looked for men from families with deep ties to Wei, soldiers who had spoken fervently of defending the dynasty, units with a history of holding ground against impossible odds. It was a macabre selection process, choosing not for skill in retreat, but for capacity to embrace a glorious, terminal stand.
They moved with a quiet, sickening efficiency, their whispered consultations in shadowy alcoves deciding fates. Promises of posthumous honors, land grants for families, eternal remembrance, these were the currencies with which they purchased a blood soaked delay.
Meanwhile, Xun Yu, Jia Kui, Cheng Yu, Tian Feng, and Xu You became the architects of the exodus. Their task was to turn an army embroiled in a defensive battle into a moving column, all under the nose of an enemy raining hell upon them.
They coordinated the silent, frantic packing of the inner keep, precious maps, the imperial seal, sacks of grain that hadn't been contaminated by dust and blood, bundles of the best arrows, the remaining stores of medicine.
They plotted staggered withdrawal routes through the less damaged western sectors of the pass, utilizing hidden postern gates and narrow defiles where the cannons could not easily target.
It was a logistical ballet performed in a earthquake, every move measured against the pounding clock of the bombardment and the need for secrecy.
A critical part of the plan was the chain of command. Xun Yu sought out Xiahou Dun, the rock upon which the defense had leaned. He found the one eyed general in a fortified fortress near the main courtyard, his face grim as he listened to the relentless impacts shaking the world.
"General," Xun Yu said, his voice low. "His Majesty has reached a decision. We are to execute a full, fighting retreat to Chang'an. Effective immediately."
Xiahou Dun's single eye widened in shock. For a man whose entire being was geared towards holding, the word 'retreat' was a foreign, blasphemous concept. "Master Xun Yu… why? We are still fighting! The men are holding the breaches!"
Xun Yu sighed, the sound carrying the weight of collapsed strategies. "Because the ground has shifted beneath our feet, General. Tianshui has fallen. The southern road for our western armies is closed, held by Hengyuan troops. They cannot reach us directly."
He saw the despair flicker in Xiahou Dun's eye and quickly continued, offering the thin reed of hope Cao Pi had provided. "But there is another path. A northern route, via Canluan and Linjing, using the river. Reinforcements will still come, but in pieces, and later. To preserve the army to meet them at Chang'An, we must cut our losses here. We leave a rearguard, ten thousand of our most loyal, to hold this ground to the last. The rest of us must make for the capital."
The information was a physical blow. Xiahou Dun absorbed it, his broad shoulders slumping slightly. The fight wasn't just moving, it was transforming into a different kind of war, one of survival and grim trade offs.
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Name: Lie Fan
Title: Founding Emperor Of Hengyuan Dynasty
Age: 36 (203 AD)
Level: 16
Next Level: 462,000
Renown: 2325
Cultivation: Yin Yang Separation (level 11)
SP: 1,121,700
ATTRIBUTE POINTS
STR: 1,010 (+20)
VIT: 659 (+20)
AGI: 653 (+10)
INT: 691
CHR: 98
WIS: 569
WILL: 436
ATR Points: 0